Malglave's Adventures Part 2

The Marsh – Part Two

As the rest of the party awakens in alarm and the battle begins, I leap down to the soft, wet sand encircling the lake with a grin of anticipation for the upcoming battle. Invisible and soundless, I draw my sword and dagger moving to the closest wisp. 

At the center of the wisp is a small skull.  Silently, I cross my blades in front of me and slice them through the center of that small ball of blue light sending it back to the Underworld before it realizes that I’m there.

My fellow party members, now awake, have engaged in battle on top of the outcropping.  The sounds of their fighting reach me as I move to the next wisp, ready to send it to Hel with its friend.   As I reach the second wisp, I notice two more coming up behind me to close me in.  I know this is going to hurt.  ZZZZZTTTT!  Even knowing that it was coming, the shocks from the wisps behind me sting as I attempt to dodge out of the way.  Even I, as mighty as I am, can get wounded.

“Three on one isn’t quite fair, friends.” I growl as flights of arrows arc from the outcropping hitting the other wisps that have shown up. Blue lights wink out all around me. “That’s more like it.” I say with a grin.

My blades flash out at the wisp in front of me with the speed of lightening itself.  The blue light flares then winks out as it joins its friends in the afterlife. I engage the second one in much the same way as the first two, and it blinks out before it can get another shock off.

From the corner of my eye I catch Grimald signaling me from the outcropping above.  His bear-like barbarian form raises his arm and shouts something in Dwarvish that I can’t quite hear.  His arm turns a bright blue, and a blast of frost as cold as the tundra envelopes me and the last wisp.  My skin turns blue for a brief moment as the freezing cold of his ray hits me.  The wisp freezes into a solid mass and falls to the ground, shattering upon impact.

I yell up to Grimald, “That hurt! Those were my kills!”  Without a seconds pause I raise the hood of my cloak, and go invisible again. With only a few wisps left, I should be able to dispatch at least one more before the battle is over. 

The remaining wisps glide toward the outcropping and Grimald.  He releases another freezing blast of frost hitting the wisps.  They both drop and shatter as their friend did only seconds before.

Grimald and I have a 1-up relationship.  Hearing the cheers from the outcropping and not seeing anymore wisps to kill, I decide that it’s the perfect chance to get him back for some of the shenanigans that he’s pulled.  I silently stealth to the area where the second frost blast killed the remaining wisps and lie down.  I take the hood of my cloak off my head and proceed to moan as if I’m injured and dying. It’s just loud enough to draw the attention of my party members.  As the party looks down, I go very still.  I can hear the sounds of concern coming from the camp.  As hard as I try, I can’t help but laugh at the trick that I’ve pulled off.  I begin to laugh harder as they start making their way down the side of the hill we were camped on.

So engrossed in my own cleverness, I fail to notice the ripples in the water approaching my position on the sand.  Nor do I notice the very large crocodile emerging from the water with his mouth just watering for a tasty Dwarven morsel.  Before I know what’s happened, it has bitten down and dragged me beneath the murky surface of the swamp….

To Be Continued…

*** Artwork is Will O'Wisp by Rob Alexander to buy his prints please follow the link:

 https://www.robalexander.com/index.php/product/will-o-the-wisp/ 

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